


A Little Blue

by QueSeraAwesome



Category: Red vs. Blue
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe- Agent South Dakota Lives, And then the rest of it happened., Gen, I just needed North and Caboose to meet, Kiddo McBlinkerson, Red Team South, Set after Epsilon goes into the memory unit, The Dakotas Live AU, Unhappy Reunions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-22
Updated: 2014-04-22
Packaged: 2018-01-20 10:36:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,056
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1507409
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/QueSeraAwesome/pseuds/QueSeraAwesome
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A few months later, the purple people show up at Valhalla. Well, purple and green. But mostly purple.</p><p>An AU where North and South escape the Meta mostly unscathed.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Little Blue

Wash isn’t looking forward to reaching the end of North’s recovery beacon trail. What he finds is what looks like a warzone, blood everywhere and broken glass from the faceplate of an armor suit. North’s beacon is coming from the bottom of the nearby lake. He calls it in. It isn’t too hard to figure out what happened here.

When he finally comes face to face with the Meta, Theta’s there, and it just confirms what Wash already suspected. Armor or not, neither North or South survived their altercation with the Meta.

“I’ll be fine,” Church says.“Because I am a motherfuckin’ ghost.”

Wash hits the E.M.P.

*

Wash goes a bit nuts there for a while. He sees Epsilon again. He lets him go. Blue team takes him in.

It isn’t the worst thing that ever happened to him

*

About a month later, the purple people arrive.

“I’m North and this is my sister, South. Are you guys the soldiers from Blood Gulch?”

The congregated soldiers stare. They look like a box of crayons, even worse than Project Freelancer back in the day.

“Wait a minute, you guys aren’t medics are you? Because we have one of those, and we hate him enough already.”

“We’re not medics,” North says. “We’re freelancers.”

There is a noteworthy, lengthy pause.

“DIBS.”

“SUCK IT BLUE.”

“Oh, fuckberries.”

“Technically purple’s just a confused shade of red!”

“Did they just call dibs on us?” North asks, voice slightly raised to be heard over all the shouting.

“Didn’t you pay attention in fucking kindergarten?” the aqua one snaps. “Purple and green both have blue in them, assholes. They’re clearly blue team.”

The fighting over the rights to the new real estate escalates immediately. Red team aggressively claims the shorter one, the girl. The logic goes as follows:

“Blue team has gotten the last two women, and all we ever got was Donut!” the Sargeant yells. “That’s false advertising! That’s discrimination!”

“Especially considering that every female that we’ve encountered is either significantly better at punching stuff than us, or someone’s sister,” the maroon one continues.

“And this one’s both,” adds Orange. “ So, dibs. Motherfuckers.”

South’s got this quirk to her mouth that means she’s choosing to find the situation before them hilarious, mostly because she likes things when explode, blow up, and otherwise crash and burn. She’s never been one to look away from a trainwreck so much as sit down with popcorn. She looks at Sarge like he’s a particularly amusing little death machine. North is slightly unnerved.

“You know, we’re not actually staying here that long,” North protests. “We’re just looking for some answers.”

“That’s not fair! You cannot take both! You already have all the people already!” the blue one yells.

“What the fuck are you morons doing?! Stop shouting and get back to work!” Wash screams, coming around a rock from the blue team side. He stares at the tableau in front of him, particularly at the two purple-armored soldiers in the middle.“Oh my god.”

“CAN WE KEEP HIM?” the Blue yells.“THE REDS ARE TAKING THE GIRL, BUT WE CAN KEEP HIM RIGHT?”

“Wash?”

“Oh my god, Washington,” South laughs. “We thought you were dead, asshole.”

“I thought you were dead too,” Wash says. “Small world.”

“Did any of you Freelancers actually die, or were you all just hiding out from each other being angsty as fuck?” Aqua asks. Wash hits him without even turning his head. “Ow! Watch it!”

“Shut up, Tucker,” Wash says. Then he cocks his gun at the two Freelancers. “Explain yourselves.”

“Unbelievable,” South growls. “You wanna fight, Wash? I can give you a fight. I got one saved up for you.”

“Let’s all just calm down,” North says.

“You’ve got one saved up for me?” Wash snarls. “What did I ever do to _you_ , South?”

“Can we not do this right now?” North asks. “We just found each other, guys.”

“Awful convenient, isn’t it?” Wash asks. “The both of you surviving. Almost too good to be true. Unbelievable, you might say.”

“Jesus-on-a-cracker Christ, Wash—You into conspiracy bullshit now?”

“He’s got a point, South,” North says. “I mean, we kinda wanted—“

“Prove it’s you,” Wash demands, not lowering the gun. “Prove this isn’t some sort of fucked up trick to bring me in.”

“Whattya wanna hear?” South snaps. “About your stupid fucking cat pictures in your damn locker, or that fucking rubber duck? OOoo how about the dumbfuck skate board Kiddo McBlinkerson copied and carried around with him everywhere?”

“Did they have a blinky best friend too?” Blue faux-whispers. “Did I start a trend.”

“Anybody could have seen that,” Wash snaps over the twittering laughter of the red team. “You gotta do better than that.”

“The first time you met Theta, you were surprised he wasn’t any bigger,” North says. “The first time we explained to you about the Alpha you had a curly straw. It was yellow.”

“Dude, you sound like a fucking dork,” Orange drawls.

“Shut up,” Wash snaps. “ _Shut up._ Let me think for a second.”

“What’s there to think about?” Sarge asks. “Yer buddies are back. We called dibs on the short angry one! You can keep the tall one though, he doesn’t seem like much of a fighter anyway.”

From the sound of it, South chokes on her tongue laughing. North cocks his head at her in such a way that clearly telegraphs displeasure.

“How did you survive?” Wash asks, breaking the mood. “I was there—I answered the beacon. Nobody could survive that much blood loss, it, it was everywhere….And Theta. The Meta had Theta before we took him down. I saw him. He was there.”

“Easy Wash,” North says, taking a step toward him. Washington raises his gun threateningly in reply. North sighs deeply, turns to look at South. She shrugs as if to say _you handle it, you know I’ll make it worse_. He reaches up and undoes the seal on his helmet, taking it off.

“Look, Wash,” he says, blinking from the sun. “It’s me. Shoot me if you want, but it’s me, okay? Yeah, he got Theta. Ripped him out of the back of my head like he did to Carolina.” It is to his credit that North’s voice barely shakes as he recounts the story. “If South hadn’t have gotten to me in time I probably would have bled out. She came looking for me, fought it off—“

“You? Fought off the Meta?” Wash asks.

“I’m a tough son of a bitch,” South says. “And I was pissed. And we didn’t have anything else it wanted.”

“She fought it off, got me stabilized. Pried loose my beacon and sunk it in the lake. We knew what it looked like, when we left.”

“You wanted people to think you were dead,” Wash says.

“We heard Project Freelancer got taken down a couple months back,” North said. “Thought we might finally be able to get some answers to some old questions we still had, maybe. Which brought us here.”

“While this is a highly informative and incredibly boring story,” Sarge interjects, “I’m going to have to cut you short there, New-Blue. Red team’s got better things to do than sit around and watch you two old biddies catch up.”

“So, what you mean to tell me,” Wash starts. It’s not even his usual shrill frustration, his tone low and loaded. “What you’re telling me, is that the only reason you came to find me was because the Project finally got taken down. Because you wanted answers. Not because you wanted to see if your friend was alive. To see the _only_ friend you had left alive.”

“See, the thing is,” Wash continues, “you could have had answers. I would have told you everything I knew—and I knew a whole lot at that point— if you had just. Come. Back. For me.”

The silence is deafening. Even South is at a loss for words.

“Well, that got serious quick,” One of the red ones finally says.

“If you two are gonna have some soap-opera heart to heart, we’re outta here,” Sarge declares. “Tears are for Blues. Blood is for Reds. Because we murder people! Red Team, fall back!” He turns to South. “Say your goodbyes, Missy, don’t forget— you’re in the Red Team now!” Sarge yells, before turning and running toward Red Base. His squad follow behind.

“You going to be okay?” North asks, eyeing the Reds. South nods.

“The old guy uses a fucking shotgun,” she says in reply. “It’ll be fun.”

“Don’t maim anybody.”

South snorts and walks away toward the Red side of the valley. They leave silence behind them, Wash still staring accusatorily at him.

“Wash—“

“I can’t deal with you right now,” Wash says. “Tucker, Caboose, you take him back to base. I’m going to go…clear my head.”

He heads off in the direction of the cliffs, North staring helplessly after him.

“Shiiiit, now he’s going to be all emo for days,” the aqua one whines. He turns to North. “What the fuck is wrong with you people? For people that were supposed to be tight, you sure fell apart easy.”

“It’s complicated,” North says.

“Yeah, right.” He points at the hulking structure on the opposite side of the canyon. “That’s Blue Base. Welcome fucking home. I’m Tucker. That’s Caboose. Don’t let this idiot try to cook shit. Or touch any equipment. Basically, if he asks you permission to do anything, just say no. Go pick a bunk or something.”

“Not going to show me around?” North asks.

“Fuck no, dude. Find shit out yourself. You just put our resident primadona in a snit fit, I gotta go run damage control.”

“Primodonno,” Caboose says. “Wash is a boy, Tucker.”

“Whatever, man. I’m gonna go wait fifteen minutes and break a radio. Fixing stuff and yelling at people always make him feel better. Keep this cockbite away from the cliffs in the meantime,” Tucker yells over his shoulder, taking off.”

North realizes that he’s just been called a cockbite. By a simulation soldier. Who helped take down Project Freelancer, and thinks he’s a totally dickbag for abandoning Wash. All of these things are true. This is his life.

“I can show you around, Agent North,” Caboose says.

“Thanks, Caboose,” he says, managing a smile.

They set out for Blue Base in silence, Caboose humming some strange little tune to himself. At least there’s one person on this team who isn’t mad at him right now.

“Mr. North,” Caboose asks, suddenly sounding serious (as serious as he ever seems to be. “Can I ask you a question.”

North shoots him a wary glance. They’ve reached the little pond lake thing, and Caboose splashes happily. His childish glee makes a smile tug at Noth’s lips, makes memories he doesn’t like to dwell start to stir.

“Sure, Caboose.”

“Mr. North, you seem sad! I thought maybe it might be because you don’t have a best friend because Washington said all your friends are dead, but then I thought maybe your sister was your best friends but also girls can’t be best friends, so I decided to ask you anyway!” Caboose says. “I am good at being best friends with people, I have had lots of best friends even if they tend to leave so I thought I could help! Because my best friends leave too! So I know how it is to be a half! So you don’t have to be sad anymore because we can be halves together if you want to!”

North laughs and burshes his hair out of his face. He slides his helmet back into place, blinking as the HUD comes on, the harsh light against his unprepared eyes making them sting.

“Thanks, Caboose,” he says.

“You seem even more sad now, Agent Northwest,” Caboose says. "Did I make you more sad?"

“It’s nothing, Caboose,” North says. “You just…remind me of someone I used to know. Sometimes.”

“Was he blue?” Caboose asks. “Because I am blue.”

“He was a little blue,” North says.

“A little blue?” Caboose says. “Well, I hope he got bigger.”

North laughs, the sound tearing out of him almost painfully.

“He never did,” he says. “He grew up a bit, though. He had to. But he never got any bigger.”

**Author's Note:**

> I just got a tumblr! Come play with me at queseraawesome.tumblr.com


End file.
